HPV - tratamiento del hpv

HPV vaccine now available for boys

By QMI Agency

Last Updated: February 23, 2010 2:39pm
An HPV vaccine that protects women from most varieties of genital warts and cervical cancer, has been approved for use by boys and men in Canada.

The vaccine, Gardasil, has been approved for boys and men ages nine through 26, the same age range as its approval in girls and women. In 2007, the federal government announced $300 million in funding to deliver

Gardasil to girls across Canada, and provincial programs began popping up across Canada to deliver in-school vaccination clinics.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said that it is now reviewing the data and will make a recommendation to the provinces based on their findings.

This could result in the in-school vaccination programs being extended to boys, or it could not.

While controversy was inevitable as school-aged children were being vaccinated for sexual infections, the vast majority of inoculations were performed without incident.

Approximately 70% of sexually active men and women are estimated to have at least one HPV infection over the course of their lives. And while there are more than 100 different varieties of HPV, only four of them cause most genital warts and cancers. Gardasil is effective at preventing infection from all four types.

While Canadian statistics on the effectiveness of the vaccination program are not yet available, Australia has successfully vaccinated up to 70% of women under the age of 28 and has been able to gather significant data.

The Australian study found that inoculating women against HPV was a proven and effective way of preventing widespread infections of genital warts.

"Since 2008, there has been a substantial and significant decline in genital warts in women 28 years of age and younger," read the report, noting reductions of up to 25% per quarter year.

Side effects reported during the initial inoculation period included pain at the site of the injection, but 31 reported cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a condition that results in temporary full-body paralysis. Out of approximately 13.5 million doses delivered in the U.S. alone in 2006-2007, at least 10 deaths were also reported.

A 2009 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reviewed the data and concluded that Gardasil has a safety record on par with other vaccines.

In October, CBC reported that one of the delays in Gardasil's approval among men was the resistance many men displayed in the testing requirements. To examine the full effects of the vaccine, men had to have swabs taken from the inside of their penises.